When it comes to soaring housing prices, Amsterdam and Auckland outstrip Hong Kong’s 38pc growth

Hong Kong has been named one of the least affordable housing markets in the world along with Amsterdam, Auckland and Vancouver in a study that showed housing affordability has shrunk considerably worldwide.

Hong Kong saw real price growth of homes surge 37.6 per cent over the past five years up to September last year, with growth in real disposable household income edging up a mere 3 per cent in the same period, according to international property consultancy Knight Frank’s Global Affordability Monitor released on Tuesday.

But that still put Hong Kong behind Amsterdam and Auckland in Knight Frank’s survey, which considered the ratio of home price to income, rent as a proportion of income and real price growth of homes compared to real income growth.

“Across the 32 cities covered, there was an average five-year real house price growth of 24 per cent, while average real income grew by only 8 per cent over the same period,” according to Knight Frank’s report. “Amsterdam, Vancouver and Auckland saw real house prices outstrip real income growth by 59 per cent, 46 per cent, 32 per cent respectively.”

But some cities still had real income growth higher than price growth of homes, such as New York and Moscow and Singapore, the study noted.